Netflix is constantly shooting new fantasy series into the ether, but something like Copenhagen Cowboy could hardly be more different from Shadow and Bone and Co. What looks like another underworld escapade from Pusher and Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn is full of fantastic surprises and all in the guise of a fairytale hell ride.
At the Venice Film Festival celebrates the six-part miniseries between fantasy and gangster thriller Premiere that is not for the faint of heart or impatient. It should only be given under one condition.
For Copenhagen Cowboy on Netflix you have to put down your smartphone
In Copenhagen Cowboys, a relatively simple story is told: young Miu (Angela Bundalovic) comes in one Brothel in the outskirts of Copenhagen on. The establishment, run by the Albanian mafia, is a haven for human trafficking, but Miu was not trafficked there for prostitution. It is said to bring good luck to the owner’s sister.
Miu must be something special, but what exactly? One thing it is definitely: resilient. She decides to flee. It begins a journey through the underworld of Copenhagen, a kind of fairy tale with evil madam witches and princeswho spend their free time as serial killers.
Check out the trailer for Copenhagen Cowboy:
Copenhagen Cowboy – S01 Teaser Trailer (German) HD
The story doesn’t exactly promise the complexity of The Wire or Dark. Despite the rudimentary story, you should only watch Copenhagen Cowboy when your smartphone is out of reach. The series asks one of you: You have to get involved with Nicolas Winding Refn and its storytelling style that gets in the way of the nonexistent attention span of the Netflix age.
The Netflix series is incredibly beautiful to watch and extremely dark at the same time
If you stay tuned to Copenhagen Cowboy, you’ll get a part comical and disturbingly beautiful series rewarded. Miu’s journey takes her through brothel slaughterhouses and Chinese restaurants, which Refn stages as sparkling rubies in a sea of black. Fortunately, the director of Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon indulges his penchant for neon colors here too.
the incredibly fascinating atmosphere of these places you can literally taste and that is also necessary. She sticks with her, as do the quirky, violent characters. Fairy Tale Uncle Refn tells his story with infinite patience.
More from Venice:
Copenhagen Cowboy is slow. The people remain silent, they move through rooms at a snail’s pace and are followed by dreamily lazy tracking shots. Whether you chop someone into pieces or eat a bowl of rice doesn’t make much of a difference. In any case, there is no need to be in a hurry in this world that has been cut off from the metropolis of Copenhagen and any other form of normality. It works according to its own laws, which we get to know with Miu’s big eyes.
Nicolas Winding Refn stays true to himself in the Netflix series
If you’ve never seen a Nicolas Winding Refn movie or series, you might be surprised. Anyone who knows him is either already annoyed – or enchanted. The Dane does not reinvent the Refn wheel in Copenhagen Cowboy. Weaving ideas from the model horror The Neon Demon and his Amazon series Too Old To Die Young, he continues in the story of a petite woman who ventures into a destructive man’s world.
I liked the first three episodes irresistible. The fantastic underworld in Copenhagen Cowboy is so intense and full of outlandish ideas that I wanted to linger in it. Men squeak like pigs like they’ve been charmed. Princes plot their next deed while their icy castles are haunted by the spirits of their victims.
After three episodes, it’s difficult to say whether Mius’ journey has a satisfying goal or whether it will remain a loose collection of ideas. But one beautifully dark whimsicality like Copenhagen Cowboy is likely to be a rarity either way when she shakes up the Netflix catalog in December.